WWII chemical weapons jeopardise Baltic pipeline

Last September, Russia and Germany signed a deal to build a $5 billion gas pipeline running 1,200 km under the Baltic from Vyborg near St Petersburg to Greifswald on Germany’s northeastern coast. The pipeline’s projected route passes close to two of Tershkov’s dumps, in the Gotland and Bornholm basins. Environmentalists in Russia and the Baltic states fear that construction could disturb the submerged and rusting shells and poison the sea.

Alexei Yablokov of the Russian Center for Ecology Policy says, “The sea bottom is entirely covered with bombs. We should first make a map of where they are.”

The Baltic is a minefield in other ways, too. The question of getting energy supplies from east to west is becoming urgent and complex in Europe. Russia’s Gazprom, which owns 51 per cent of the Baltic pipeline, urgently wants a direct link to its biggest customer, Germany, to avoid having to pay transit fees to middleman countries.

Even after over half a century on the seabed the shells’ contents—mostly mustard gas and lewisite (both blister agents), as well as the nerve gas tabun—may still be deadly. Mustard gas can damage DNA, causes cancer and survives for at least five years on the ocean floor before dissolving.

Europe probably doesn’t have the luxury of refusing the Baltic pipeline—especially since by the time its first section comes online in 2010, North Sea oil and gas stocks will have dwindled away. Europe will just have to factor the prospect of disturbing Hitler’s still-deadly poisons into the price of energy. —lat-WP